


The Places We Will Go

by moonrise31



Series: once, twice, and again until it's over [13]
Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, good place au, mostly for season 1, spoilers i guess, three cheers for sachaeng
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 17:56:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16665508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonrise31/pseuds/moonrise31
Summary: In which Chaeyoung wakes up in the Good Place, where she meets a god (?), a robot (?), some friends (?), and one soulmate.





	The Places We Will Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xylomylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xylomylo/gifts).



> Happy belated birthday my friend! SaChaeng is great, and so are you :D
> 
> (title taken from a cute book by one of the greatest rhymers of our time, Dr. Seuss)

When Chaeyoung blinks awake, the last thing she expects to see is a woman in a tastefully fitted suit, smiling cheerfully at her from behind a large oak desk. Which is probably why she tries to open the conversation with something intelligent like, “Uh, hi.”

“Hello, Chaeyoung,” the woman says, extending a hand for Chaeyoung to shake. “I’m Jihyo. Welcome to the Good Place.”

They shake hands, and Chaeyoung returns hers to her lap. “The Good Place?” She glances around the office; it’s spacious, the walls a warm beige, and some potted plants are artfully decorating various corners. “Is this some kind of insurance company?”

Jihyo laughs. “I said ‘good’, not ‘horrible’.” She waits for Chaeyoung to crack a smile, and then continues. “To put it simply, this is the afterlife.”

“Oh.” Chaeyoung settles back into the cushy leather of the chair she hadn’t realized she’s sitting in. “So, I died?”

“I’m afraid so,” Jihyo confirms, although she looks a lot less upset about that particular fact than Chaeyoung is currently feeling. “But here’s the good news: since you performed so admirably during your years on Earth, you can now enjoy the benefits for eternity.”

Chaeyoung narrows her eyes. “What do you mean by that?”

Jihyo stands up, and while short, unfortunately still has a good three centimeters on Chaeyoung. “Perhaps it would be better if I turned this introduction into more of a show and tell. Walk with me?”

The elevator outside Jihyo’s office isn’t particularly impressive, though its walls are polished to such a mirror finish that Chaeyoung feels a tug of sympathy for whoever had gotten saddled with the job. The hallway the elevator doors open to is also bland and empty, Jihyo’s heels clacking sharply on the tile next to the shuffle of Chaeyoung’s scuffed combat boots -- at least this place lets her keep her aesthetic, Chaeyoung thinks, if not the rest of her actual life.

Outside, however is a different story. The roads are cobblestone and devoid of cars, because everyone is strolling leisurely down the lane instead and enjoying the great outdoors. The sun is bright, there’s birdsong in the air, and the trees are just the right shade of green to match each well-kept lawn of picture-perfect suburbia that they pass.

Jihyo goes through the pleasantries that Chaeyoung can barely pay attention to: how the Good Place has many neighborhoods for worthy humans, how each neighborhood has an Architect in charge of designing the community to satisfy all its inhabitants -- Jihyo, of course, is the Architect of this one. 

The first thing Chaeyoung asks is, “Why are there so many bingsoo places?”

“Oh, we’re trying to be more culturally aware,” Jihyo explains. “Other alternatives were frozen yogurt and flavored dry ice, so bingsoo seemed like a reasonable intermediate.”

“Culturally aware?” Chaeyoung frowns. “Aren’t we speaking Korean already?”

“Everyone feels the happiest speaking their native language,” Jihyo explains. “To you, we’re speaking Korean. To Tzuyu over there,” she points to a tall, pretty girl sitting at a table outside of a place dubbed _Pat’s Bingsoo_ , “we’re speaking Mandarin.”

Tzuyu waves. “Hi, Chaeyoung.”

“Huh.” Chaeyoung waves back. She stuffs her hands into her pockets as she tries to think of something else to say. “So what language are we speaking in for you?”

Jihyo smiles. “Some unrecognizable mashup of all the languages that ever existed. So sort of like the entire English language, but somehow even more convoluted.”

“Ah,” says Chaeyoung. Because that, out of all things, makes at least some sense. 

“I’ll take you to your house,” Jihyo offers. “It’s just down the block.”

They end up running into Dahyun Kim, who introduces herself as Chaeyoung’s next-next-next-door neighbor. There’s also Mina Myoui, perched primly on a park bench in a way that can only be described as poetic, who greets Chaeyoung with a polite nod and the quiet clack of knitting needles. 

“Here we are,” says Jihyo, gesturing to the comfortable two-story home bordered by a friendly white picket fence and a row of neatly trimmed rose bushes. Chaeyoung leans in to inspect the blooms, and notes with some disappointment that there don’t seem to be any thorns.

“It’s a bit big,” she finally decides to tell Jihyo. “I’m only one person. I don’t need all that space.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Jihyo says brightly. “Which is why --"

The front door to the house slams open, and another woman bounds down the steps. “Chaeyoung! You’re finally here!”

Chaeyoung barely gets to blink before she’s engulfed in a hug. It’s warm and smells vaguely of the scent shampoo bottles claim is equivalent to the ocean, but is really just clean like laundry detergent. Not that Chaeyoung minds that, or the fact that she is just now realizing exactly how _close_ the hug is, and how she can feel _everything_ about the other body pressing against her -- 

“This is Sana Minatozaki,” Jihyo continues, calmly ignoring the complete short circuiting of Chaeyoung’s brain. Jihyo nudges Sana’s foot with her own, and the other woman dutifully unwraps herself from Chaeyoung. “She’ll be living with you.”

“Oh, roommates.” Chaeyoung clears her throat, and hopefully also the flush settled deep in her cheeks. She directs her gaze pointedly at Jihyo instead of at the human ball of joy bouncing on her heels beside the Architect. “Cool, that’s nice.”

Jihyo holds up a hand. “No, not ‘room’. ‘ _Soul_ ’.”

Chaeyoung’s eyes bug out as she finally looks back at Sana. “ _Soul_ mates?”

“Ouch.” Sana stops bouncing and pouts. “Am I not meeting your expectations?”

Chaeyoung’s gaze starts to wander from Sana’s -- very pretty -- face downwards. She starts to think about said expectations, but swiftly redirects her eyes just in time; her flush rapidly spreads to her ears -- and maybe also her neck as she rubs the back of it. “What? No -- no, you’re. You’re fine. Soulmate. Yup. You’re a fine soulmate, Sana.”

Sana immediately brightens. “Aw, you’re adorable. Can I call you ‘Chaeng’?”

Chaeyoung is _this_ close to fainting, but she keeps it together enough to not sound entirely like a dying cow as she manages a strangled, “Sure.”

“Great!” Jihyo claps her hands together. “You two will get along beautifully. I mean, you _are_ soulmates, after all.”

“I’m feeling the connection already!” Sana reaches over and pinches Chaeyoung’s cheeks. “How can I _not_ love someone as cute as you?”

“Lo- _love_?” Chaeyoung chokes out.

Sana immediately switches to rubbing comforting circles in Chaeyoung’s back. She glances over at Jihyo. “I thought you said we could understand each other perfectly even if we’re technically speaking different languages?”

“I don’t think comprehension is your main concern.” Jihyo’s mouth stretches into a smile -- a professional one, of course, because Chaeyoung has just determined that it’s apparently Jihyo’s _profession_ to know everything that’s going on in her head, and then just laugh smugly about it on the inside. 

“That reminds me.” Jihyo snaps her fingers. 

There’s a Windows-friendly _bing_ , and then, “Hello!”

The two of them whip around, and a new figure smiles back at them. “Hi,” Chaeyoung manages cautiously.

“I’m Momo,” Momo tells them. “Your endearingly naive yet all-powerful neighborhood helper.”

“Every Good Place neighborhood has a Momo,” Jihyo says. “Think of her as a personal search engine, and also a free shopping site.”

Chaeyoung raises her eyebrows. “Shopping site?”

“Ask me for something,” Momo suggests brightly. 

Chaeyoung squints at her. “ ‘The Starry Night’, by Vincent Van Gogh.”

A framed canvas is suddenly in Momo’s hands. “The actual piece would be stealing, which might make the Museum of Modern Art sad, but I thought you might enjoy this reproduction instead.” Her forehead creases slightly. “I tried my best, but this was my first time working with oils, and he used so _much_ , it was almost impossible.”

Chaeyoung gapes. “You _made_ this? In just a split second?”

Momo hums thoughtfully. “I guess it would depend on how you split the second.”

“It’s great, Momo!” Sana chirps. Then a glint enters her eye. “I can already tell that we’re going to be best friends.”

“Keep in mind that the neighborhood has a finite capacity in terms of material goods,” Jihyo cuts in. “But we will of course do our best to accommodate.”

Sana nods, throwing an arm around Chaeyoung’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, I won’t ask for much. The mayor of this entire place is my soulmate, anyway.”

Chaeyoung freezes. “What?”

“Sorry.” Sana steps back, withdrawing her arm despite how much Chaeyoung, deep down, wants her to keep it there. “Too soon to start throwing around the ‘s’ word?”

“That’s another issue entirely.” Chaeyoung whips around to stare at Jihyo. “But did she just say _mayor_?”

Jihyo laughs, and Chaeyoung thinks she’d look very pretty if she wasn’t the reason Chaeyoung’s stomach has abruptly decided to start practicing for some Olympic gymnastic event. “Well, I’m a busy Architect nowadays, and although Momo is good at trying to make everyone happy while also obeying the laws of robotics, I need someone who can take care of day-to-day things without being contractually obligated to explode if it might hurt someone’s feelings.”

“It’s a good contract,” says Momo amicably.

“So why me?” Chaeyoung demands. Sana shifts restlessly in the momentary silence, before a sort of resolute look crosses her face and she reaches out to determinedly pat Chaeyoung on the head.

It works, a little bit, but Chaeyoung tries to maintain her angry expression just for appearance’s sake. 

Jihyo smiles professionally, again. “From what we’ve seen of your life, Chaeyoung, you’re perfect for the job. Now, Sana arrived just before you, but she should be able to finish your tour of the house before your big welcome speech to the entire neighborhood this evening.”

“Entire neighborhood,” Chaeyoung deadpans.

“That means literally everyone,” explains Momo.

“See you tonight!” Jihyo gives them a wave -- which only Sana returns wholeheartedly -- before strolling away. Momo has vanished without even an anticlimactic pop, leaving Chaeyoung alone with a Sana who very much looks like she wants to pat the younger woman’s head again.

“Is being mayor that bad?” Sana finally asks. “I mean, this _is_ the Good Place. I can’t imagine a lot of troublemakers running around here, so you’d have a pretty easy time.”

Chaeyoung makes a face. “It’s just the responsibility, I guess. I lived my entire life taking care of myself, and now I die and you tell me I have to take care of _everyone_?”

Sana gives her a strange look, and Chaeyoung silently curses her weakness for pretty girls as the reason she’d just let slip the very thing that’s been annoyingly gnawing at her insides ever since leaving Jihyo’s office.

But then Sana’s smiling again, and Chaeyoung doesn’t even have a chance to change the topic before Sana takes her hand and drags her towards the house. “Come on, I’ll finish showing you around.”

And Chaeyoung thinks that maybe the fact that she might not actually belong in the Good Place can wait for another day.

-

Living with Sana is surprisingly easy, even after Chaeyoung nearly walked right back out into the street when she discovered only one bed for the entire two floors of the house. Of course, neither would have the other sleeping on the couch -- although Chaeyoung resignedly observed that she could easily stretch out on two of the cushions and still leave three completely empty. 

(In the end, Sana solved the problem by proposing a wall of pillows to split the bed down the middle, as she is a self-admitted “sleep cuddler” and still wants to respect Chaeyoung’s personal sleep space.

Adorable, Chaeyoung thought immediately, and then hoped that her own penchant for sleep talking has not followed her into the afterlife.)

Now, Chaeyoung finds herself lying on her back on the right side of the bed, a stack of soft pillows barely brushing against her left elbow. 

“Hey, Sana,” she says, eyes staring at the ceiling overhead, darkened except for a thoughtful spatter of glow-in-the-dark stars. Sana claims they had already been there when she arrived, but Chaeyoung had definitely overheard her asking Momo for some the minute after Chaeyoung mentioned that she used to have a similar setup when she was alive.

It’s something she’s not sure how to think about, quite yet. The fact that she and Sana are soulmates in every possible way -- as calculated by Momo.

(“You’re perfect for each other!” Momo had beamed. “More than perfect, actually. You’re 101% compatible.”

Chaeyoung narrowed her eyes. “Is that even possible?”

“Of course,” Momo told her. “The actual numerical value of wholeness is 100.5%, but the universe likes to round down. So I balance it out by rounding up!”)

Chaeyoung will be the last person to ever question the mathematical soundness of anything, which gives her plenty of time to wonder exactly how she’s supposed to fit 101% Sana into her afterlife; especially when the closest she’d gotten to a crush previously had been cutting her hair in the same style as one of her favorite foreign actresses. 

“Hm?” Sana’s response is muffled by the mass of downy fluff in between them, but it still snaps Chaeyoung out of most of her thoughts.

Chaeyoung imagines that she’s stuffing her worries into the pillows currently shielding Sana from her sight, and clears her throat. “Do you sleep on your back or your stomach?”

“Chaeng,” Sana chuckles, her warm words both too light and too heavy for Chaeyoung’s heart to beat regularly, “you know you can just look over and see, right?”

“That would be cheating,” Chaeyoung says smoothly enough; she’s gotten better at the whole being flustered around Sana, at least outwardly. Sana, for her part, keeps to herself unless she gets particularly excited.

To be completely honest, Sana gets excited a lot. But Chaeyoung decides to ignore that point in favor of how she might start trying to hold Sana’s hand on purpose, for once.

(“Chaeng?”

Chaeyoung glanced over. “Yeah?”

“It’s okay to be nervous,” Sana told her, squeezing her hand softly. With a start, Chaeyoung realized that she’d reached out unconsciously for the older woman’s a few seconds ago.

“Sorry.” Chaeyoung loosened her hold, just in case Sana wanted to unthread her fingers from between Chaeyoung’s. “I haven’t really spoken in front of big crowds before.” She didn’t even really know what sort of things a mayor should talk about normally, much less during some apparently big speech.

Sana didn’t pull away. “That’s alright.” She paused, and then brightened. “Just imagine that you’re talking to all the stars in the universe.”

Chaeyoung let out a chuckle. “That’s a lot of stars.”

“Yeah,” said Sana. “But you’re not afraid of any of _them_ , are you?”

“No,” Chaeyoung said, looking up at Sana. “I guess not.”)

“Asking me is cheating too, then,” Sana reasons now from the other side of the pillows. “How about you guess, and I’ll tell you if you’re right?”

Chaeyoung decides that this is fair, and tells Sana as much. And then adds, “Stomach.”

Sana hums. “What makes you say that?” 

“Your voice is muffled,” Chaeyoung tells her. “And not just by the pillows.”

“I see,” says Sana. She might sound smug if she weren’t so drowsy, and Chaeyoung feels a little guilty for keeping the other up.

“You should sleep if you’re tired,” Chaeyoung says. “I’m sorry for bothering you.”

Sana laughs. “You’re not a bother, Chaeng. And I don’t think sleeping would help, in either case.” 

Chaeyoung has a sneaking suspicion that she’s going to be subject to another one of Sana’s stupidly cheesy pickup lines, but she lets it pass. “Why?”

“Because,” says Sana, “I’d be exhausted from chasing after you in my dreams.”

Chaeyoung grabs a pillow and throws it over the wall. “That was terrible.”

“Hey!” Sana yelps as the pillow presumably lands on her. There’s a dip now in the barricade between them: a space perfectly aligned for Chaeyoung to see that one of Sana’s feet has jerked up after the pillow hit its mark. And with how her knee is bending to face Chaeyoung’s side of the bed -- 

“Hey, yourself.” Chaeyoung laughs and grabs another pillow, widening the dip. “Sleeping on your side is cheating.” 

Sana’s arm shoots up to catch the fluffy projectile, and her elbow remains in sight as the older woman hugs both pillows close to her chest. “ _You_ made the rules of the game. It’s your fault for not specifying.”

Chaeyoung laughs again. Because it’s so easy to giggle quietly with Sana like this, under the plastic glowing stars stuck on the ceiling -- _their_ ceiling, she supposes -- with Sana’s determination and Good Place ticky-tack. It shouldn’t be this simple, shouldn’t make her feel this light. But it does.

“You aren’t getting these pillows back, by the way,” Sana mumbles. “You tore down the barricade, so you have to face the consequences.”

“Fine,” says Chaeyoung. Eyelids drooping, she rolls over onto her side, too, so that she’s facing Sana’s side of the bed. 

She dreams of a world without pillows, so that when she wakes up, Sana’s smile might be the first thing she sees.

-

Chaeyoung still doesn’t know what a mayor on Earth actually does, but she is definitely sure that hers hadn’t been obligated to walk around the neighborhood every single day, checking up on each individual in the community.

(“I know it’s a lot,” Jihyo told her brightly over coffee-flavored bingsoo during her first morning in the Good Place. “If it’s too much to ask, just tell me.”

Chaeyoung, though, got the feeling that it wasn’t _supposed_ to be too much to ask, and so settled with a quick smile and, “Of course. You can count on me.”)

On the brighter side of things, she does learn some interesting tidbits about her neighbors during her daily rounds. Like how Tzuyu apparently found a home for every abandoned puppy in Taiwan before she tragically died in a plane crash on her way to China to do the same. Dahyun, meanwhile, singlehandedly brought bald eagles back from the brink of extinction without taking a single piece of credit, mostly because she was only nine years old at the time and the United States didn’t want to look silly.

(“What about you, Mina?” Chaeyoung had asked shortly after.

Mina looked up and smiled, needles clacking against each other silently as she continued to knit.

“Mina doesn’t speak much,” Dahyun cut in. “They say her vocal chords are still warming up after her year-long solo expedition to provide a scarf for every penguin in Antarctica. But she knits in Morse code, if you happen to be fluent.”

“If only I had paid more attention back in high school,” said Chaeyoung, “when absolutely everyone was learning Morse code.”

Dahyun nodded sagely. “Me too, me too.” Then she brightened. “Oh, what about you? What did you do in your past life?”

Chaeyoung managed a laugh and a rapid change of subject. “It wasn’t animal-related, so I don’t think it’s that important.”)

Chaeyoung’s usually exhausted by the time she makes it back to the house she shares with Sana. By the end of the week, she’s become polite-yet-efficient enough to get back an hour early and crash on the living room couch until Sana arrives to bother her. 

Today, however, she almost walks in on Sana and Momo sitting on the couch instead. Their backs are to her, and she stays hovering in the hallway.

“Momo, we’re best friends, right?”

Momo, surprisingly, has a slouching habit -- “A programmed glitch to make me seem more relatable,” Momo readily explains, but Chaeyoung suspects that it might just be her machine learning tendencies picking up on the undeniably human trait of bad posture. At Sana’s question, though, she immediately sits up. “Absolutely not.”

Sana pouts. “Come on, I thought we were really making a connection here.”

“I can only connect to the neighborhood grid and to the sentient Roomba that Tzuyu has managed to tape cute dog ears onto,” says Momo. “I’m here to help you, not to be your friend.”

Sana leans closer. “Is your eye twitching?”

Momo jerks away. “I don’t twitch.” 

“You totally are.” Sana pulls back and grins. “I told you that pond water in your eye would be bad for you.”

“I am entirely water resistant,” Momo huffs. “And it was your fault for splashing me in the first place.” 

“I wasn’t the one who wanted to try and pet the koi fish,” Sana sings.

“You didn’t tell me ‘no’.” Momo crosses her arms, and Chaeyoung can imagine the increasingly Sana-like pout the other must be sporting. “Chaeyoung is a much better best friend for you, in either case.”

“Chaeyoung is my soulmate,” Sana says reasonably. “That’s different.”

Momo tilts her head. “I thought soulmates _are_ best friends.”

“Of course.” Sana hums. “But soulmates are more than that, too.”

Momo frowns. “I don’t understand. Chaeyoung, is that true?”

Chaeyoung freezes. Sana whips around, wide-eyed, but then her face splits into a grin. “Hey! You’re back early.”

“I am.” Chaeyoung glances at Momo, but the latter has already blinked away, conveniently vacating the spot next to Sana. “So, you want to be best friends with Momo?”

Sana folds her arms and props them on the back of the couch, resting her chin on top as she raises her eyebrows. “Are you jealous?”

“No,” Chaeyoung scoffs. “You just had that tone you get when you want to ask for a favor.”

Sana draws back, gasping in mock offense. “Me, asking for favors? You have some nerve, soulmate of mine.”

“There you go again. Remember yesterday?” Chaeyoung steps closer. “ ‘Chaeng, we’re soulmates, right? That means you want curry ramen for dinner tonight too, right?’”

Sana sticks her tongue out. “My voice is _at least_ three whole steps lower than that.”

“I’ll believe that when I believe you have perfect pitch.” Chaeyoung walks around the end of the couch, and then drops onto the empty cushion beside Sana.

“Right,” Sana says softly. Then she grins again. “So, ramen for dinner tonight?”

Chaeyoung tilts her head. “What was that just now?”

“What was what?” Sana asks, shifting so that both her feet land on the floor, her body no longer fully facing Chaeyoung.

“I was kidding, you know,” Chaeyoung tells her. “If you really tell me that you have perfect pitch, I’ll believe you.”

Sana chuckles. “Well, I don’t, so you don’t have to worry.”

Chaeyoung lets herself whine a little. “ _Sana_.” She reaches out to poke the other’s shoulder. “Tell me what’s bothering you.”

Sana lets out a long exhale. “Alright. I guess I’ve been trying to tell everyone else, anyway.”

Silence falls between them, but Chaeyoung waits. 

“I don’t think I’m supposed to be here.” Sana finally looks up and meets her gaze. “You know, in the Good Place.”

“Oh,” says Chaeyoung, and pauses. She watches the apprehension in Sana’s eyes start to bleed into panic and quickly adds, “That’s okay.”

Sana lets out the breath she’d been holding. “So you do believe me?”

Chaeyoung gingerly slides closer, so that their shoulders bump together. “Why wouldn’t I?” 

Sana huffs. “Because I’ve been trying to tell everyone in this whole neighborhood, but no one else will! Even Mina doesn’t believe me, and considering that all she does is sit in the park and _knit_ , you’d think she wouldn’t have anything better to do.”

“Well,” Chaeyoung says carefully, “I guess it’s not something people are expected to say in the Good Place.”

“It’s not just that.” Sana crosses her arms. “They won’t believe _anything_ I say. Not when I tell them that I was an only child, or that I basically flew off a bike when I was younger and my parents just called me Superman. I even walked up to Dahyun this morning and told her that green tea is green, and she just smiled and said, ‘Sure, Sana’, in that kind of voice that makes you think she’s not sure at all.” 

“Oh.” Chaeyoung frowns. “That does seem sort of...weird.”

“Only you or Momo will really listen to what I say. It’s so _frustrating_.” Sana deflates, then, and Chaeyoung resists the urge to hug her. “You’re taking this pretty well, actually. The fact that I’m not supposed to be here. Unless you’re just humoring me out of the goodness of your heart, too?”

Chaeyoung laughs. “It’s nothing like that. I promise.”

“Then what is it?” Sana asks, voice so small that Chaeyoung gives in to her instincts and pulls the older woman close. 

“Well,” says Chaeyoung quietly. “I don’t think I belong here, either.”

Sana blinks. “Really?”

“This whole...mayor thing, especially.” Chaeyoung waves her free hand in the empty space in front of them. “I don’t think I’m cut out for it at all. The whole caring-for-other-people idea.”

“You said that on the first day,” Sana muses. “You do seem like you care, though.”

Chaeyoung sighs. “I don’t _hate_ people. But there’s a difference between asking how your day went, and actually wanting to hear the answer.”

“Ah.” Sana draws away from the hug slightly to flash Chaeyoung a smug grin. “So you’re the cool, aloof type of girl.”

Chaeyoung shoves her lightly. “Shut up.”

A sudden flurry of knocking breaks the comfortable silence. They share a confused glance before Chaeyoung jumps up, Sana close behind, and heads for the front entrance.

Chaeyoung can only stare when she pulls the door open.

“Hi, Mina,” says Sana. “What can we do for you?”

Mina blinks back at them, and then opens her mouth.

The two of them watch, not even daring to breathe.

“It’s bad,” Mina says, and points behind her.

Chaeyoung finally registers the state of the neighborhood. There’s a fire in the park where Mina’s bench used to be. Tzuyu is running back and forth trying to catch her Roomba, which seems to be in the middle of chasing Dahyun up a tree. The sky has turned an odd shade of green, not unlike the color the lawns had been -- every blade of grass decorating the yards of each house, Chaeyoung now realizes, has accordingly become the kind of blue usually reserved for lazy summer Sundays. 

“Are those koi fish flying across the sky?” Sana finally asks.

Chaeyoung squints. “And is that Momo hanging off of the fin of the really aggressive looking one?” She pauses. “I don’t remember koi fish having three fins on each side, come to think of it.”

“Or Tzuyu having three Roombas.” Sana jumps as another park bench alights into a roaring blaze. “And now there are three fires.”

“Bad things come in threes,” Mina says solemnly.

Chaeyoung glances at her. “Then why are there Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?”

Mina shrugs. “Death is probably superfluous if the other three are already War, Famine, and Pestilence.”

“I guess that’s true,” Sana muses. “Isn’t there that saying about how once is great, twice is even better, but thrice is just plain horrible?”

Chaeyoung blinks. “I don’t remember hearing any saying like that, ever.”

“It probably doesn’t exist,” Sana admits immediately. “I just wanted to be a part of the conversation.” 

“Right, conversation.” Chaeyoung turns back to the woman standing on their doorstep. “I can’t believe we’re actually _talking_ with Mina Myoui.”

“I talk all the time,” Mina says. “It’s not my fault you don’t understand Morse code.” She jerks a thumb over her shoulder. “I’ll try to find Jihyo. Please do what you can to fix this mess until then.”

“No need.” Momo _bings_ onto the doorstep next to Mina, looking a little windswept and smelling just slightly of pond water. “I’m supposed to take the mayor and her soulmate to Jihyo’s office right now.”

(After Momo popped out of sight again, this time taking Sana and Chaeyoung with her, Mina stood alone for a moment. She heaved a sigh, and then turned back to the fires and Roombas and koi fish soaring high in the sky. 

Gripping a knitting needle tightly in each hand, she stalked resolutely into the fray.)

“It’s totally crazy out there,” Sana yells as soon as they _bing_ into Jihyo’s office -- or more accurately, once she and Chaeyoung stop doubling over and dry heaving, because humans apparently aren’t meant to experience Momo’s normal mode of transportation. 

Chaeyoung coughs one last time before she straightens. “It’s alright, I’m sure Jihyo has a plan that she wants us to help with.”

“I have absolutely no plan,” Jihyo tells them from behind her desk.

Chaeyoung snaps her head up, finally realizing the state the Architect is in. Jihyo’s hair looks like she’s been through a koi fish ride herself, and her blazer has long been discarded in some far corner of her large office. Half the collar of her dress shirt is popped up, and the other half is somehow so wrinkled even a Good Place iron wouldn’t be able to do much. 

“Um,” says Chaeyoung, and pauses when Jihyo’s eyes, complete with dark circles and a heavy set of eyebags, meet her own. “It’s that bad?”

Jihyo throws her hands up and upsets a hefty stack of papers as she does, scattering the sheets into a flurry of potential papercuts. “I don’t know where I went wrong. A glitch this size is unprecedented in the entire history of the Good Place.”

Sana shifts uneasily, but Chaeyoung clears her throat loudly to cover it. “That’s what’s causing it? A glitch?”

“Maybe one, maybe a million.” Jihyo waves an exhausted hand, and a hologram filled with green text flickers into existence. “There’s about half a googol of lines of code to go through, and even with Momo’s help, it could take centuries.” She sits up, pinning Chaeyoung with a desperate gaze. “You’ve been mayor for about a week now. Did you see anything off about the neighborhood? Or any _one_? Someone who maybe shouldn’t actually be here?”

“Nope!” Chaeyoung answers quickly, with what she hopes is an adequately rueful grin. “But I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

“And I’ll keep the koi fish out of the sky,” Momo pipes up from behind them. “It seems as of now, Mina has subdued at least one Roomba, and Tzuyu has convinced another to help her and Dahyun start putting out the fires.”

“We’ll take the human way back, thanks,” Chaeyoung tells Momo before the latter can _bing_ them away again. Then she turns back to Jihyo. “We’ll let you know once we figure something out.”

Jihyo waves the two of them off, tugging at the wrinkled end of her collar as she begins muttering darkly to herself. Chaeyoung and Sana silently get into the elevator, which is now playing an irritating song by some group of girls claiming they were “gonna be a star”. 

“So,” Sana says once they are outside once more. “What are we going to do? _We_ are obviously the problem.”

“Well, we can’t just _tell_ her that.” Chaeyoung frowns. “I’m betting that if there’s a Good Place, there’s a Bad Place too. And I definitely don’t want to verify that bet.”

“Maybe there’s an Average Place,” Sana suggests.

Chaeyoung wrinkles her nose. “Sounds boring and mediocre. Neither of which you are.” She ignores Sana’s gasp and exaggerated swooning motions, and grabs the older woman’s hand instead. “Come on. We just have to keep pretending that we’re supposed to be here, and maybe figure out a way to _actually_ belong here before we end up destroying the entire neighborhood.”

“That should be easy enough,” Sana says brightly. And then ducks just before a rogue Roomba -- which seems to have caught on fire -- roars over her head and crashes into the front doors of Jihyo’s office building.

-

Mina’s observation of threes begins to multiply as the days pass. On the bright side, Tzuyu now commandeers an entire brigade of firefighting Roombas, and Sana has convinced Momo to take her along on all her koi fish wrangling adventures.

(“I thought you showered,” Chaeyoung said one night as Sana joined her on the couch.

“I did!” Sana protested, before lifting her own arm to take a sniff. “I guess the koi never really comes out.”

“Maybe you could do something else to fight the chaos,” Chaeyoung suggested hopefully. 

Sana shrugged. “No one else believes me when I say that I can help.”

Chaeyoung paused, and then made a big show of extracting herself from her very comfortable nest among the couch cushions. “Well, I certainly believe you when you say that you’ll help me with the dishes.”

Sana looked up at her, sad smile widening into a wholehearted grin. “But I _didn’t_ say that.”

She helped Chaeyoung in the end, anyway -- if spending half the time getting into a soap bubble fight counted. On the bright side, they both went to bed smelling only of lemon-scented dish detergent.)

Chaeyoung, meanwhile, has her hands full helping Dahyun paint every lawn in the neighborhood the appropriate shade of green again. She's not sure how they’re going to paint the sky, too, but she supposes it’s a problem for some day far off into the future; it turns out that “neighborhood” is very much a relative term when it comes to talking about size, and they have many, many blades of grass to cover before they’re even close to finishing.

“Hey, Chaeng,” Sana says from her side of the bed, five nights after the day Mina had knocked on their front door. “What was your life like when you were, you know. Alive?”

Chaeyoung picks at some green paint from under her fingernails. The pillow barrier between them is long gone now, and she doesn’t flinch when Sana’s fingers wrap gently around her wrist. She stops scraping, letting their joined hands drop onto the mattress as she sighs. “I didn’t do much. I was trying to get a masters degree in philosophy, but just through online classes, so I could avoid people as much as possible.” She smirks, turning her head so she can look at Sana. “Sorry that your soulmate was a loser.”

“It’s okay to not like people,” Sana tells her. “I mean, I would know. I sold car insurance all day and had to act like I _liked_ it.”

Chaeyoung snickers. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. If I’d met you back then, I probably would’ve hated you.”

Sana whines, using their joined hands to tug herself closer. “Not fair. If you were learning about philosophy, shouldn’t you know that even car insurance salespeople exist for a reason?”

“Depends on the philosophy you’re talking about,” Chaeyoung says. She pushes back a yawn, because she’s not quite ready to sleep yet. She’s still lying on her back, but Sana’s sort of curled beside her now; she can feel the older woman’s chin nestled quietly on the top of her head, their still-joined hands resting on her stomach. She stares at the stars ticky-tacked to the ceiling, trying to make constellations from the completely random pattern Sana had thrown up before their first night under the same roof.

Chaeyoung blinks once. Twice. And then says, “Hey, Sana.”

Sana hums.

“Did I,” Chaeyoung pauses. “Did I ever tell you what my least favorite constellation was?”

“I don’t think so,” Sana mumbles into her hair. “You told me that you liked Ursa Minor the best, because you wanted to stick up for the little person. Or bear, I guess.” She uncurls herself slightly, rolling back so she can glance up at the ceiling, too. “I didn’t know what it looked like, though, and I forgot to ask Momo before you came in and saw what I was doing.”

“Sana,” Chaeyoung says calmly. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course.” 

Chaeyoung sits up, tugging the older woman with her. “Then we need to see Jihyo right now.”

“Now?” Sana tries to rub the sleep from her eyes. “But it’s almost midnight.”

“Hey, Momo,” says Chaeyoung. 

Momo _bings_ to Chaeyoung’s bedside and smiles. “Hello. I’m glad you two are still decent even though you are sharing the same bed, late at night. How may I help you?”

“We need to talk to Jihyo.” Chaeyoung raises her eyebrows when Momo only blinks back at her. “Now.”

“She’s at the door,” Momo informs them just as a pattern of polite knocks sounds from downstairs. 

“Good evening,” Jihyo greets them when Sana answers; the Architect steps smoothly past the latter and into the house. Her shirt now looks at least half-ironed, her hair a little less like one of Tzuyu’s Roombas had tried to give her a makeover, but she’s still a far cry from the neatly pressed woman Chaeyoung had first met. “How can I help you two?”

Chaeyoung crosses her arms. “Who are you, really?”

Jihyo blinks. “What?”

“What?” Sana repeats, glancing at Chaeyoung.

Chaeyoung’s frown deepens. “Who are you, Jihyo, and why are you pretending that _this_ ,” she gestures around them, “isn’t the _Bad_ Place?”

Sana whirls around fully to gape at her. “ _What_?”

Jihyo’s face remains blank for one second, two seconds. And then --

She sighs, making her way to the living room and collapsing on the couch. “Which run is this, Momo?”

“The six hundred and ninety-eighth time,” Momo says. “They took a little longer to realize this round, but it’s still within the average for a 96% confidence interval.”

“Hold on.” Chaeyoung steps forward. “Do you mean that, not only has this all happened before, but we’ve already been through it more than six hundred times? And we don’t remember _any_ of it?”

Jihyo holds up her hand. “One snap of my fingers, and everything gets reset.” 

Sana gasps. “So you lied about the googol of code?”

Chaeyoung shoots the older woman a bemused glance. “Among _many_ other things.” She steps forward. “So this _is_ the Bad Place, right?”

Jihyo gives her a weary smile, and her next question comes out like a well-rehearsed line. “How’d you find out?”

“Simple.” Chaeyoung crosses her arms. “Out of all the constellations, I _hate_ Cassiopeia. Sana mentioned before that some of the stars on our ceiling were there before she asked Momo for some, and I realized they’d actually been drawn on with glow-in-the-dark paint.”

“Turning the neighborhood into one giant rave last time apparently wasn’t the way to go,” Momo observes.

“Alright.” Jihyo smiles, and it doesn’t even try to reach her eyes. “Congratulations. You figured it out. Again.”

“Time for take six hundred and ninety-nine?” Momo suggests.

Jihyo slouches back into the couch. “What’s even the point? I’m not even doing this because I want to.”

Sana blinks. “Wait, you’re not?”

“Yeah, aren’t you the devil or something?” Chaeyoung chimes in. “Assuming ‘The Bad Place’ is a euphemism for some more fiery, Christian-oriented idea of an extreme time-out corner for the afterlife.”

“I’m a demon, but I’m not an Architect.” Jihyo rolls her eyes. “I was just doing Taecyeon a favor. He said this plan was foolproof, and if we ran into any problems, we could just restart the whole thing and go to the next backup plan.”

“Oh,” says Momo after a quick stare into the distance. “Turns out he only had six hundred ninety-seven backup plans.”

“Exactly,” Jihyo deadpans. “Honestly, all I did was throw a fireball super hard at him when I was a kid, but he’s been holding this over my head for _centuries_.” She throws her hands up. “I mean, come on -- what do you expect six-hundred-year-old demons to do? _Not_ throw fireballs at their babysitters?”

“I generally expect six-hundred-year-old...kids...to not throw _anything_ at me,” Chaeyoung informs her. “Or at least, nothing that’s on fire. Wait.” She frowns. “How old _are_ you?”

Sana suddenly slams a fist into her palm. “So this is why no one will believe anything I say? And why Chaeng has to pretend she cares so much about all these people she actually barely knows?”

“Right again.” Jihyo gives her a slow clap. “What eternal torture is more perfect than forcing you to experience the one thing you actively avoided your entire life?”

Sana gapes. “That’s evil.”

“Well, I’m certainly not going to sprout horns and a spiked tail to prove it,” Jihyo grumbles. “I was perfectly fine with my office job, you know. Maybe one day I’d make it big and help start a world war or two. But then I get saddled with _this_ instead. I’d honestly rather burn in one of my own sulfur pits.”

Chaeyoung squints. “What kind of an office job comes with sulfur pits?”

“The cushy ones.” Jihyo crosses her arms. “Well, I guess there’s only one thing left to do now.”

Sana raises her hand. “If you’re going to say, ‘throw you two into a sulfur pit’, I’m requesting at least a ten-second head start to make a run for it.”

“The sulfur pit is _my_ backup plan.” Jihyo gets up and dusts off her slacks. “But first, we’re going to the Judge.”

“The Judge?” Chaeyoung frowns. “Who’s that --”

The four of them _bing_ into an empty room. Sana twirls unsteadily three times before finally tripping over Chaeyoung, who has curled up on the floor in a fetal position. 

Jihyo rolls her eyes. “Humans.” She glances at Momo, who can only offer a shrug in return.

Once she’s finished wrangling with her gag reflex, Chaeyoung stumbles to her feet. She narrows her eyes at the lone desk, which has only a computer monitor for decoration. A stuffed rabbit is sitting behind it, in a relatively comfy-looking office chair. “ _That’s_ the Judge?”

“Did someone call?” The chair pushes back, and a woman dressed in black robes pops up from under the desk.

“Nayeon.” Jihyo stares, bewildered, as the Judge flaps the wrinkles out of her billowing sleeves. “What were you doing down there?”

“Oh, I accidentally unplugged the ethernet cable.” Nayeon pouts. “I was just getting to the good part of my drama, too.”

“Hold on. _She_.” Chaeyoung slowly points at Nayeon. “Is judging _us_?”

Nayeon clasps her hands together. “Aw, and you brought some humans with you! They’re so cute and naive and totally belong in the Bad Place.”

Jihyo winces. “That’s...actually what we came here to talk to you about.”

Nayeon raises her eyebrows. “Okay, Jihyo, I know you’re a demon, but at least have some morals.”

“Look, I’m not saying to just send them to the actual Good Place.” Jihyo takes a breath. “I’m just asking that they get a second chance to prove that they _might_ be able to go there.”

Nayeon slides slowly into her office chair. “Go on.” She sets the stuffed rabbit onto her lap. “Kkaengi and I are listening.”

Jihyo crosses her arms. Then she seems to think better of it, and lets her hands drop to her sides. “I took them through almost seven hundred iterations of what was supposed to be the Good Place, but was in reality their worst nightmares. And they figured it out every single time.”

Nayeon shrugs. “So Taecyeon’s elaborate plans didn’t work out. They rarely do anyway. Just throw them in your sulfur pit and be done with it.”

Sana leans in to whisper in Chaeyoung’s ear. “On the count of three, be ready to run.” Chaeyoung scoffs, but lets Sana’s hand slip into hers.

“That’s the thing,” Jihyo continues. “Taecyeon thought putting the two of them together specifically would be a genius move. I mean, you couldn’t get a better pair of opposites: Sana Minatozaki, who needs the entire world’s attention to feel like she’s worth anything --”

Sana gasps, free hand dramatically pressed to her chest. “Way to pull your punches.”

“-- and Chaeyoung Son, someone so cynical she’d find a way to send herself to Pluto if that was how to avoid interacting with another human being.”

Chaeyoung dips her head modestly. “It’s true.”

Jihyo whirls around and jabs a finger in their direction. “It _was_ true. But not anymore. You two became each other’s exception to your entire life’s one rule, every one of those gosh darn six hundred ninety-eight times.” She pauses, frowning, and then tries again. “Gosh _darn_ \--” She turns to face Nayeon again. “Why do you have Good Place cursing filters active here?”

Nayeon shrugs. “As a space of true neutrality, I have to balance my subpar internet service with a more virtuous feature.”

“Whatever.” Jihyo heaves a sigh. “So what I’m saying is, these two are proof that maybe, a person can change in the afterlife. That maybe, if they’d met when they were alive, they’d have been able to change each other and make their way into the Good Place after all.”

Nayeon hums. “Alright. Then let’s have a test. Sana, Chaeyoung?”

The two humans nervously step forward, close enough that Chaeyoung can see the individual hairs on Kkaengi’s head.

Nayeon pulls out two strips of paper from one of her desk drawers and slides one towards each of them. “This will be simple. Ask each other the question that’s written on your slip of paper, and the other has to answer honestly.” 

Chaeyoung glances down at her slip just as Sana says softly, “You can ask me first, Chaeng.” 

Chaeyoung nods. “What was your favorite part about selling car insurance?”

Sana hesitates. 

“Take as long as you want,” says Nayeon, leaning back in her chair. “We literally have forever.” 

Sana swallows, and then gives Chaeyoung a shaky smile. “Well, truthfully, what Jihyo said earlier was right. I liked that I could talk people into anything. I could connect with them, get them to trust in me and what I told them was best for them. I guess it did make me feel noticed? I mattered to so many people that I made employee of the month consecutively for almost two years.” She laughs. “I know it sounds sad. So you aren’t the loser here, Chaeng.”

Chaeyoung clears her throat. “Follow-up question.”

“Okay,” Sana says quietly.

Chaeyoung fidgets. “When you hugged me the first time that we met… was that real?”

Jihyo starts coughing. Momo diligently pats her on the back. Nayeon now has both elbows on her desk, chin propped in her hands and a dopey smile on her face as she watches intently.

Sana grins. “Was I planning to win over my soulmate and continue pretending that I actually belonged in the Good Place? Sure. But you just looked so _squishy_ next to Jihyo that hugging you was really the only thing I could do in any case.”

“Right.” Chaeyoung looks down quickly so she can ignore Sana smiling at her blush. “You can ask your question now.”

“Why is Cassiopeia your least favorite constellation?”

“Oh.” Chaeyoung pauses. “Well, do you know the story?”

Sana shakes her head.

“Basically,” says Chaeyoung, “the constellation represents a woman who’s forced to sit in her chair in the sky as the heavens rotate, so that she ends up sitting upside down half the time.” 

“Sounds hard,” Sana says.

Chaeyoung cracks a smile. “Yeah, I guess. But, the whole thing about being upside down is just in terms of someone else’s perspective. To her, she could be right side up the entire time, you know? So I just hate that all her suffering was based on the views of other people.”

Sana smiles. “Follow-up question.”

Chaeyoung chuckles. “Okay.”

“Why were you the first one to start taking down the pillow barricade?”

Chaeyoung meets Sana’s eyes as a grin starts to slowly spread across her face. “I guess I figured that I didn’t need it anymore.”

“You made them sleep in the same bed?” Nayeon stage-whispers to Jihyo. “Smart move, smart move.”

“It was actually Momo’s idea,” Jihyo admits.

“I watched a lot of shows with Nayeon,” Momo says. “But she won’t let me anymore, because I kept watching all the episodes at once in my head and accidentally giving her spoilers.”

Nayeon claps her hands together. “Well done, you two. Well done. I even teared up a little at the end there.”

They snap their attention back to the Judge. Chaeyoung blinks. “So, did we pass the test? Are you going to send us to the Good Place?”

“What?” Nayeon snorts. “Of course not. Just because you can create the entire script of a drama I may or may not be planning to write and/or produce and star in sometime in the next millennium, doesn’t mean that you get a free pass to the Good Place.”

Jihyo steps forward. “But --”

“ _But_.” Nayeon holds up a hand. “What Jihyo said earlier gave me an idea. We’ll just send you two back to Earth, and you can live your lives anew. See if you can do better with this second chance.”

Chaeyoung frowns. “Back to our old lives? Will we be able to remember anything from here?” 

“Of course not,” Nayeon says. “That would be cheating. Alright, off you go!” She claps again, and the two humans blink out of existence.

-

Jihyo slips quietly into the room of screens. “How’re they doing?”

Momo frowns as she stares at one particular monitor. “About as well as before. Sana’s going to hit a record high in monthly sales, and Chaeyoung hasn’t left her apartment all week except for that one time some kid on the floor below her pulled the fire alarm. And even then she wouldn’t have left if the sprinklers hadn’t turned on.”

“This isn’t going to work.” Jihyo sighs. “We need them to meet. They’re only able to change if they have each other.”

Momo tilts her head. “What can we do, though? At least they’re both in Seoul, but it’s a big city, and they never once crossed paths during their first lives.”

“Simple.” Jihyo grins. “We just need to give them a couple of nudges in the right direction.”

Momo’s eyes widen. “Are you sure? Aren’t you in enough trouble already?”

Jihyo shrugs. “So I got demoted to brimstone duty. I’ve got all of eternity to work my way back up again; another few centuries of punishment isn’t going to be much.” She shoots Momo a sly smile. “Besides, you can’t pretend that you’re not at least somewhat invested in Sana getting into the Good Place this time.”

“I want both of them to get into the Good Place,” Momo says stiffly. “I’ve been talking with the other Momos, and they all say that the Good Place has significantly fewer flying _or_ splashing koi fish than ours had.”

Jihyo’s smirk widens as she leans closer. “Just admit it. Sana _is_ your best friend.”

“So what if she is,” Momo says hotly. “She told me on the first day that that’s what we were going to be, and I’m just trying to accommodate that as much as possible.”

“Right,” Jihyo hums as she straightens. “It’s okay, Momo. They grew on me too. I was pretty conflicted by the two hundred and thirty-sixth time, to be honest.”

“The one where we tried to have them haunted by ghosts of their past.” Momo nods. “That was a good one.”

“Mostly because Mina makes a surprisingly convincing mummy,” Jihyo muses. “Well, I’m off. Keep watch here and let me know if anything changes, okay?”

Momo salutes. “You got it.”

Jihyo steps out and makes her way through space and time, quietly sneaking past Nayeon’s office and the dramatic argument echoing from the Judge’s impressively tinny speakers. Finally, she arrives at the door.

“Hello,” says the doorwoman sitting at the desk on her left.

“Hey, Jeongyeon.” Jihyo pulls out her most convincing smile, along with a thick packet. “I’ve got some paperwork from Nayeon here. Authorization for me to visit Earth.”

Jeongyeon scans through the stack of papers. “Impressive.”

Jihyo shrugs. “Yeah, I guess it’s that.”

“Impressive _forgery_.” Jeongyeon tosses the packet onto her desk. “Look, Jihyo, you’re my favorite demon, but that doesn’t mean I can just let you pass whenever you want to.”

“Why not?” Jihyo lets a whine color her tone. “It’s just this one time, Jeong. I promise.”

“Nayeon’ll get mad,” Jeongyeon tells her. “And you know how much I hate her nagging. Or having to accompany her to the mirror shop and help her decide which one she looks the best in. They’re all the same, Jihyo.” Jeongyeon sits up, voice low and pained. “They’re all. Mirrors.”

Jihyo nods, sympathetic. “Okay, how about this. I’ll take full responsibility, so she’ll only nag and mirror shop with me. _And_ ,” she places a palm on Jeongyeon’s desk and leans forward, “I’ll bring you back a set of Legos.”

Jeongyeon grabs the papers and gives them a hearty stamp. “Deal.”

-

Chaeyoung yawns as she steps out of her apartment building. The sun was nice enough filtering through her ninth-floor window, but she much preferred basking in it on her carpeted floor instead of while threading through throngs of Seoul foot traffic on her way to the nearest convenience store.

She grumbles when someone steps on her foot, but at least her combat boots absorb most of the shock. She makes it to the first intersection, waiting until the crossing light turns green. It does, and she steps off the curb -- 

A body rams into her. They crash to the sidewalk; the crowd lazily parts around them, the rest of the front runners beginning to filter into the street before the crossing light timer finishes counting down.

“Hi, sorry about that,” the woman on top of Chaeyoung says. Chaeyoung is too busy thinking about all the gravel that must be stuck to the back of her coat, but she does look up to meet the woman’s eyes.

The woman smiles, and Chaeyoung blinks, because it looks almost _professional_ to her. Which doesn’t make sense, since no one’s job should be tackling random people to the sidewalk. “Uh, hi.”

A truck barrels through the intersection. Luckily, the pedestrians manage to jump back in time, and the cars moving in the opposite direction swerve to the side to miss it. Angry honks fill the air after the truck shoots past.

“Holy shit,” Chaeyoung breathes. She’d craned her neck up to see, but now she lets her head fall gently back onto the concrete.

“Yeah, it’s that,” the woman agrees. “Are you okay?”

“I guess --” Chaeyoung blinks when she no longer feels a presence hovering above her. The rest of the crowd has already vacated the curb, and the woman is lost among a dozen other bobbing heads making their way to the other side of the street. “Okay, rude,” Chaeyoung grumbles as she shifts onto her elbows. 

“Hey, do you need some help?”

Somehow, a woman _even prettier_ than the one before is standing above her now. Actually, she’s technically standing behind Chaeyoung, so Chaeyoung has to tilt her head back to meet the other’s eyes. 

Chaeyoung instantly feels her cheeks redden. “Um, yeah, sure, I guess.”

The woman walks around, and now that her face is no longer upside down, Chaeyoung feels her blush spread all the way to her neck. The woman smiles. “Here.”

Chaeyoung takes the hand and lets herself be pulled up. “Thanks.” She clears her throat, returning her hands to her coat pockets now that she’s standing. “That was some truck, huh?”

The woman giggles. “Yeah, definitely. I’m glad no one got hurt.”

The weight of it all hits Chaeyoung then. “I...I guess it’s good that I fell. Otherwise I would’ve been in that intersection for sure.”

“So it’s a good thing that that woman tackled you?” The woman tilts her head.

Chaeyoung laughs. “Yeah, seems that way. She didn’t even help me get up, though, so I’d say that puts her karma at about even for the day.”

“Well, _I_ helped you up.” The woman grins. “Do I get something for my good karma?”

Chaeyoung manages to hold back most of her choking. “Oh, uh. Uh, sure. I could buy you a coffee?”

“Coffee would be great.” The woman smiles. “I’m Sana.”

“Chaeyoung.” Chaeyoung grins, still a little flustered. But finds herself hoping that if they hold hands again later, her palms won’t be as sweaty or specked with gravel.

**Author's Note:**

> if you like sachaeng and/or the good place and/or xylomylo's awesome fics, i'm more than ready to yell about them with you on twitter (@moonrise31)


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